Neurofeedback

[jessicamarie]

I was wondering if anyone had heard of any research or discussion relating to neurofeedback for dream work, enhancement of dream vividness or assisting in attaining lucidity? If you are saying "What's neurofeedback?" here's a link: http://www.eegspectrum.com/IntroToNeuro/ -Jessica

[Amethyst Star]

I actually did a report my junior year in high school on Biofeedback (the same thing). It's actually quite facinating! Not only can it help most of the things mentioned in that article, but the training sessions can also help people learn to control their heart-rate, breathing, muscle movements, etc. The trainers give their clients advice on techniques to try in relation to what they're trying to accomplish. I'd imagine it'd be kind of expensive, though, since you have one-on-one training with a specialist and are in contact with sophisticated equipment. I'd like to try it some day. I'm not sure how well it would pertain to LDing, but it could be interesting....maybe a trainer can walk someone through WILDs or something. That'd be cool.

[Seeker]

Hi Jessica! Welcome back, long time no see! I did practice biofeedback somewhat in the 70's. Very interesting concept. It should be very effective in helping to plant suggestions into your subconcious to have lucid dreams. How much have you messed with it? I am assuming that the technology has improved somewhat in the last 30 years, right? EDIT: Seems like the technology has not really changed a lot I wonder what would happen if you wore a biofeedback device while listening to BWGEN?

[jessicamarie]

First off, Seeker - thanks for remembering me! Nice to talk with you again. Neurofeedback is a type of biofeedback that uses an electroencephlograph (EEG) to record a person's brainwaves and then uses a computer to interpret those brainwaves into visual and auditory feedback to the person in order to assist them in learning to produce more flexible and balanced brain states. It is basically a form of operant conditioning. In fact, the technology for neurofeedback (which has indeed been around since the 60s) has been evolving, the lastest EEG (Minder Labs Pendant EEG) is small enough to wear around your neck and it's wireless. I am working as a neurofeedback technician right now and yes, the speculation about the price is correct...it costs about $80 to $100 for a session. The cool thing is that it is covered by insurance for things like ADD, depression, epilepsy and brain injuries. And if you know some crazy person like me who wants guinea pigs for esoteric studies, then you might get a significant discount! I have written and studied extensively on the subject of dreams and I am very interested in developing a protocol to either enhance dream recall/vividness or to somehow assist with lucidness. While I know a lot about the physiology of REM sleep and the scientific and psychological theories on why we dream, I am not as well versed about lucidity in particular and have only had two brief achievements of the state myself, so I was thinking that if I could collaborate with some of the knowledgable and kind folks on this forum, that we could come up with something. What would be ideal would be for me to get a series of EEG readings from lucid dreamers, to see what, if anything, was different in their brain activity compared to persons who aren't lucid dreamers. This obviously presents MANY confounds and it may be impossible to establish any kind of baseline for either group, but I'm not sure anyone has ever compared the two groups, so you never know. I'm just kicking the can around here with some ideas, but I would eventually like to take this to the next level and actively persue the connection between brainwave training and lucidity and perhaps formulate the beginnings of a study. Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions would be appreciated.

[Je33ica]

I have a computer game that uses biofeedback (Journey to Wild Divine), I'm not sure if that's the same thing as neurofeedback. There are many exericises which you have to calm down or hyper up and they measure it using biofeedback (SCL and heart rate, three sensors placed around three fingers). Anyways, I haven't heart of neurofeedback being used for dream work. That would be a very interesting field to research! Welcome back Jessica! (great, you stole my name )

[Anelior]

Hi Jessicamarie, I have heard about neurofeedback in a neurobiology course I took in my last year of university. Valid research is hard to find on the internet as a lot of the sites you go to are the result of people postulating from very iffy data. I've read in a modern spiritualit book co-authored by the same guy who wrote the Celestine Prophecy that there have been experiments that have favoured the theory of neurofeedback, but they didn't cite their sources on that. All I can share is what I learned in my course. Basically, as far as neurscience is now, consciousness is generated as a result of perceptual integration. It is an abstract state that is not measurable in any form. Do not be confused with the EEG and the "energy waves" it measures. It is measuring areas of electrical activity which is the result of neurons generating action potentials. It is NOT measuring the vibrations of the energy of consciousness like I have heard some people say. However, that said, the conscious perception has been shown to feed back to the somatic world as well. For example, very basic, if you WANT a glass of water, you will initiate the correct motor outputs to go and get one. This is, of course, linked with other neural lines which feed into the conscious world, implicated in motivation and instinctual drives. Right now I am in the process of doing some work with a technique called Threading. It is by all means a visualization technique allowing a form of neurfeedback. To this day, yet, I have not seen evidence substantial enough to prove to me that it works without a doubt; but what I have seen and experienced has me wondering! If you want to discuss, feel free to pm me. Graeme

[hypnos]

hello my name is steve - i'm a neuropsychologist working as neurofeedback-therapist in zürich / switzerland. one my favourite hobbies ever since i started with nf 5 years ago as my daily work was trying to use neurofeedback to induce ld's. in short: the main effect of nf is a natural regulation of the sleep/wake-rhythm. this certainly adds to the number of ld's because it takes care of any existing or potential sleepdisorders. especially the deepsleepphase becomes more effective - people feel faster regenerated and many clients dont need as much sleep any more as before (and at the same time feeling more energetic during day). now, if you do sleep longer , you will most probably have more and longer REM-phases because your sleep was more efficient in the first phase of the night. the more and longer REM's - the higher the chance to have a ld. so the effect of nf on ld's is more indirectly over a general sleepenhancement. if you are interested in nf then please go to the site www.zengar.com. the nf-system neurocarepro is the most advanced system at the moment worldwide. steve